Brazil Business & Economy News

Brazil’s jobless rate climbed to 5.7 percent in February but still marked a historic low for the month, the government’s statistics agency IBGE said (Reuters).

Employment and production statistics indicate a significant slump in Brazil’s industry sector (which accounts for 26.9 percent of the GDP) in recent months. Economists are pointing to the dramatic slowdown in the Brazilian economy, which has caused industry to stall and jobs in the sector to dry up (The Rio Times).

BUSINESS

France’s Casino said it will exercise its right to become the sole controlling shareholder of Pao de Acucar, a move set to reduce the influence of the hard-charging chairman at Brazil’s biggest retailer after an ownership struggle last year (Reuters).

Brazil’s JBS, the world’s biggest beef producer, plans to invest between 900 million reais ($492.66 million) and 1 billion reais in its operations 2012, down from the 1.4 billion reais investments initially planned for last year, Chief Executive Officer Wesley Batista said (Reuters).

South Korean shipping giant Samsung sold its 6 percent stake to exit Brazil’s EAS shipyard, which has struggled to meet orders on schedule as the government tries to attract foreign know-how to the industry, O Estado de S. Paulo newspaper said (Reuters).

AVIATION

Embraer , the world’s third-largest producer of commercial aircraft, is expanding its presence in the United States with an aviation research, development and design center in Melbourne, Florida (Reuters).

Embraer posted a fourth-quarter net loss of 171.6 million reais ($94 million), compared to a profit of 208 million reais a year earlier (Reuters).

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OIL & GAS

When federal prosecutor Eduardo Santos de Oliveira heard in November about an oil spill in a Chevron field off Brazil’s coast, he was determined that, this time, the polluters wouldn’t wiggle from his grip (Reuters).

A Brazilian court barred 17 executives from Chevron and Transocean from leaving Brazil, pending criminal charges related to a high-profile oil spill last November (Reuters).

Brazil’s oil regulator said Chevron was not negligent in the drilling of a well that caused an offshore oil spill in November, a finding that may help the company to fight criminal charges and an $11 billion lawsuit (Reuters).

A new well drilled in Brazil at deepwater block BM-S-8 confirmed the presence of crude oil, said Portuguese oil company Galp, part of a consortium drilling in the prolific Santos basin area (Reuters).